


Abomination

by FionasEmbrace



Category: Dead Space
Genre: Bugs & Insects, Formicophilia, M/M, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:03:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FionasEmbrace/pseuds/FionasEmbrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Based on events of DS1) Isaac Clarke narrowly escapes the Ishimura with his life. He finds himself on a dangerous mission aboard a retired EarthGov ship, the USG Valor. Between the snare of his old memories and a decisive act of betrayal, he may never be able to leave this place and the Necromorph species keeping house here, threatening his survival.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abomination

**Author's Note:**

> It feels weird writing Dead Space fic now that the series was likely to be over for some time now. But you never forget your first love..

He never wanted to be dragged down there. Not to that part of the world. Somewhere, there was a gap- a remote plane, where he could just as well visit by shooting himself in the mouth. That was the exact thing that ghost was compelling him to do. The exact thing he was equipped for. But he was followed here. Across space shuttles, so much space and galaxies, there was no way to leave behind your own head. And he had the grandest ideas about being able to shake this thing once he left the Ishimura. He needed to know the answer, even more than he needed the radio or Hammond back or the singularity core. Was there any escape? There would always be that voice. She became part of his world, this persistent reminder. That the bulletfire, the vortex to that other world still materially existed, a piece of actual carbon in the void.

What it meant, to pull back from the Marker visions, to reality- it may have been that the very person in front of him knew what those were. He could ask her sometime, once this round was over. Shouldn't it have been some comfort, somehow, that none of this lasted forever? For now he reiterated, in his own head, which voices belonged to the enemy. Which were dead, or living. These visions, and the trouble that came with it, were implanted unto him through rounds of Marker exposure and forced experimentation. Funny how he found himself alongside a new companion here of all places. Although her circumstances were surely different, Daniels was susceptible to the same visions. Isaac knew it for a fact, almost as much as he knew what monstrosities lay in wait for him on this ship. He wanted to forget. A swift kick to the shins brought him back to ground level. 

The plan was so simple. Move in to the Valor, get the part, get out. He _knew_ something was wrong when he got here- because of the ashes, and shells. Otherworldly blood. Evidence the sub-hangar was already breached. A familiar sight from the Ishimura. It wasn't enough to deter him from moving forward. Everything was going smoothly- until he found those signs of another visitor.

Until they weren't merely signs.

Until he was held at gunpoint.

"This is for your own good." 

He heard the _click_ behind him. Shit. The chains were robust, solid metal, with no give. 

At first, there were no other humans here. Isaac voyaged all the way from the USM Kellion to this ship, only to discover the extent of it. The lack of bodies, and presence of so many other wretched things locked up here. His weapons bore into their populace but there was no end to them. It was a wonder how this destroyer-class vessel was structurally sound, what with the terrible things that happened- the damage from gunfire, and the Necromorph outbreak fast annihilating everyone on board some time before he arrived. Still it was unfit for any serious travel. Only with its singularity core, its primary energy source, had Isaac any chance of putting the docked escape vessel back into operation. 

Isaac struggled a bit in the chains. His hands were in such an awkward place behind his back, around the support beam of this wretched old munitions storage chamber, making it very hard to maintain a normal position. He tested them a bit, and could not pull his hands out for love or money. Game over. Daniels stared him down, and Isaac lost his temper.

"Why in the hell is this necessary?! Who are you trying to protect?"

She looked him down and up, and frowned. "You're in no position to try and bargain with me, alright?" She grabbed his suited collar. "Nobody, not me, or you, or the EDF, knows the extent of what the Marker's effects are."

"Then, tell me what your plan is."

She knelt down behind him, and he heard her messing around with the chain- probably, to reinforce it. "Ideally, we would have a proper containment system." Another _click_. He knew, he just knew, she wouldn't be so kind as to explain all sorts of details to him. "This ship is so far flung from civilization, it's out of the question. This will have to do. While I move on ahead, there are things I need to retrieve out of this ship- the details are none of your concern."

"It's not the singularity core, is it?" Isaac glanced backward, and she came back over to face him. Wouldn't that be something. There was only one, and he never foresaw having to fight a human over it. As she was about to respond to him, something wasn't right. The ground- no, some debris left there- trembled. It caught Isaac's eye, and he glanced toward the door, expecting something but not seeing it. "Did you hear that?"

It could be another one of them.

He'd seen species big and small, clamoring out of the vents and beneath the floors. Little did Isaac know, the ancestor specimen on this ship bore little resemblance to any of the ship's current host Necromorphs. The result of a complicated internal squabble, between layers of bureaucracy within the EDF, the sample was to be placed here, temporarily, with the military operation, until it could find a permanent home. It was a disaster in the making. No one was really qualified to the safekeeping and study of it. This was a dirty secret to the rest of the EDF corps aboard. In fact, the whole scientific study here was a facade. Even the poor mans' laboratory on the ship, nobody paid it any mind. Or at least, this was what Isaac pieced together from what he could find. Day in and day out, the sustainment fluid ate into the bolts on its container. It didn't need to fully escape. Bits of its freeform body committed themselves to the floor, and what organic matter it could find. The specimen fed on these in its environment, and reproduced parthenogenetically. But its mainstay was human hosts. The horde wreaked havoc on the Valor. The living remains that Isaac found could scarcely reveal this unsettling history.

Daniels shook her head and muttered something, preoccupied with engaging her sensor. The distant shriek, the rattling of the grates- all of it served to remind him of the hostile forces on the Ishimura and he knew what this was. But there was something even closer by. Daniels had her back turned the other way. Something made the hairs on Isaac's neck stand on end. It was so much like gentle fingers, experimenting on his skin by his ankle- bare cloth, wearing simple gear while his RIG was out for repair. Something prickly, whisking at the fabric. It wasn't some accident. There was no wind in space. 

He looked down in horror. "They're-"

"Keep it down."

"-Crawling up my leg..."

"What is?"

"Fucking look."

What started as only a couple small vermin, nothing too out of the ordinary- what with the corruption biomass so nearby, turned into a quivering mess. Now Daniels turned around and they both saw it. 

They were emerging from the floor, negotiating through the grate. It was a big, diverse multitude of bugs- no earth species, but Necromorph. They were little deterred by Isaac trying to shake them off. In all his frantic flailing at them, he stomped only a few of them in the process. With the same instinct with which an ant on earth reacts to a fearsome boot closing in overhead, these things were slippery fishes. They were skittish. Surely, small things like these would not survive so well if not. They evaded being stomped, but did little to put distance between themselves and Isaac. They stayed, loitering around him. Moving around in some aimless way. Daniels took aim at them, but the frantic noise at the door grew louder and so she turned her aim that way and kept it there. These things were a nuisance, but for now were only that.

He would violently swat at them over and over, his fist even connected sometimes, but they still wouldn't fucking leave. _These things sure are dumb_ , he thought. He almost wished they would suck his blood, take what they wanted of his sweet human flesh and get it over with, rather than swarm around him in droves and annoy him incessantly. They buzzed and buzzed around him, offering sharp, tiny kisses on his skin as they grazed it, or prickling along his flesh as they trod upon it with their hardworking little legs. The ones that tried to walk upon him, he shook them off, but they didn't learn their lesson- they would skitter around aimlessly for a bit and then somehow find their way right back to him. He looked up at the ceiling. Oh, no. One or two at a time they would drop down from the ceiling onto his prone, trembling body. The only outliers were a few centipede-like ones, who just seemed to _run laps_ around the room. Why, who fucking knows. He really wished his arms were free and he could retrieve his weapon. It didn't help that Daniels was otherwise occupied and couldn't give a shit about all of this. 

Strange that they were all over _him_ , not Daniels. Why? He was unable to really shake them off or keep them off of his body for long. Maybe because he was tied down, in chains. They must like a human target that can't fully fight back. One that wouldn't gun them down, or just head off and lose them down some hallway. Of fucking course. He yanked at the handcuffs one last time, all in vain. They weren't tight on his wrists or arms, but there was absolutely no give.

His weary hands rattled in the chains. If he were only a little bit looser in them, if only he could slip out a tiny ways, he could get over to the adjacent wall, and retrieve his gun. The links locked up behind his elbows and restrained him in a pathetic manner. He felt his body collapsing back down, bound to the same area in the room where the pests were. He didn't want it to end like this. Daniels was preoccupied with the Necromorph trying to make for them both. It was delivered out of the air return near the floor, a familiar specimen with large talons peeking out of its mouth and a grotesque, mangled version of a human body. It was fast and vicious, hyperactive, and especially interested in Isaac. Great, he was popular today. He still felt the vermin inching up his leg every so often but there were more pressing matters in the room right now. The wretched demon set out to savagely devour them both, right here. 

Now it was his lot, to be chained up in a room, fit for consumption by two alien taxonomic orders instead of one. Daniels discharged her gun and it was a clean shot. It blasted the creature's head off separating flesh and exoskeleton, exposing some of its innards- a wretched memory of human anatomy. The gore shed on the floor was scarcely a speed bump in its mad dash for the two humans- Isaac looked at Daniels and she was afraid. It was still fucking alive and charged at them full throttle. There wasn't time for a new plan. There wasn't time to scream for help. The creature made for Isaac. Daniels opened fire on the thing, lodging bullets onto its back which narrowly missed friendly firing into the engineer's prone body. Everything seemed to slow down. If it wasn't the Necromorph that did him in, it would be the gunfire here. Daniels would take this thing out and kill him in the process; no skin off her back. But the bullets connected. They lopped off the demon's appendages- its legs, arms, and some extra phallic-like appendages- and the flesh and blood came down, inanimate. 

There was some long silence, if only to make absolutely certain that was the end of their trouble. They heard nothing except the movement of tiny legs and buzzing. Daniels disengaged the weapon and holstered it back on her cargo pants, turning her attention to Isaac. Little had changed for him- the bugs wouldn't leave for all his swatting, let alone a human-sized skirmish a few paces away.

"Get these off of me."

Daniels came right up to Isaac in no real hurry, and knelt down by his ankle. She picked up one of the vermin, looked at it, and frowned. "This class isn't one I'd expect, AmeSIG measures 261-"

"What do you mean? And, thanks for taking your sweet time."

"This ship is a contained environment. The Necromorphs should only be able to synthesize new tissue and DNA from others local to this ship, and incorporate cells from human hosts. But this Necromorph order is quite distant from the others." She futzed around with the device attached to her wrist, and shook it. "Scanner could be acting up again."

"Are they trying to eat me alive?"

"I doubt it-" She chuckled. "It probably would have happened by now."

He felt like he _was_ being consumed by them, eaten alive, although they didn't penetrate his body. They buzzed and squirmed and crawled all around him, all the same. These things preferred dark places and took a liking to peeking inside his clothes. Daniels watched, unruffled. If only he had his RIG out, he might be having an easier time. Actually, fuck that- if only he didn't have an accomplice here who was hostile. He should have known better than to trust someone associated with EarthGov's bio-security sector. All the same, he knew they wouldn't be able to navigate through the encasement of the RIG or find any shortcuts inside of it. That explained how he had less of a problem with these types of vermin before. This gear, little more than armored street clothes, left him vulnerable to these things. Fuck, he could kill Daniels right now. The way she just absently watched him, like some disturbing nature show. The things had little difficulty finding their way through the gaps between buttons up the collar of his shirt, and they stroked along his ear and licked at his neck. Only just now, some of them definitely did bite his flesh. Not hard or deep enough to be debilitating- not like what he knew the insect-Necromorphs were capable of- but it stole his attention and for once kept him locked right down on reality. He writhed around to deter the one licking at his neck and finally cast it off- an inchworm, or what looked like one.

"This will be the first documented sighting of this strain. It'll be trouble if I don't let the folks back home know." She had out a pocket organizer with 'EarthGov' insignia and started writing things in, doing nothing to stop the vermin, and they seemed to ignore her.

"No, heavens, don't let me rush you." He would not be one to start dealing with the likes of EarthGov's lackeys, slaves to their corruption and bureaucracy. Never in a million years would he have pegged Daniels as the one who would ultimately kill him. She would let him die here, slowly, piece by piece eaten alive by these things, while documenting it all in the name of questionable science for her superiors. Once more he lunged forward in the chains, trying to gain some distance from these bugs. Perhaps, get them to latch on to Daniels and then they would be her problem. It didn't have to be a terribly thorough plan. Daniels reacted quickly and stepped back, out of harm's way. Isaac was left, panting, angrily looking for other options. Every-fucking-one was an enemy, apparently. 

He tried to squash them on sight, especially the ones that were actively snacking on him. There was just too damn many. He felt other small bites on his arms and legs. Maybe they were like mosquitos, trying to draw tiny amounts of blood. Maybe they really were venomous. All the same, it felt like hands- familiar ones, sliding up under his clothes and getting fresh. Their bodies moved along his skin that way. It was easier if he didn't look. These things were no doubt trying to poison him and kill him however they knew how. The venom could be fast, it could be slow. The science nerd inside of him took over. Let's see, about a two hundred organisms, emitting around 4ng of kaleotrophic venom each, traveling through the bloodstream, a high common velocity given his current heart rate. He felt physically ill. 

There were few documented cases of humans with exposure to Necromorphs, who survived. The scientific community sponsored by EarthGov had speculated, but never clinically showed, that alien neurotoxins were capable of entering the brain, stimulating it to supernatural responses. Or, rewiring it altogether. Tiny entities which affected the brain, took hold of the body, turning it into a tool for defending a host organism. Even in the face of the guest organism's peril, even to the death. Indeed, if this was a survival tactic of Necromorphs, it bore resemblance to symbiotic relationships on Earth. Phenomena like these were difficult to reliably verify and there was no consensus.

The propagation of the Necromorph orders was something no one truly understood, the result of a scientific investigation gone wrong and a corrupt government helpless to stop it. Perhaps, all of this was yet another EarthGov experiment. Isaac wasn't military, or research, or EDF, or part of some special operation. He was never supposed to be someone who fights off an infestation, or has any part in the related experimentation. Isaac was a robotics engineer, trained to work on mining equipment. He was simply caught up in the middle of it. They had it in for him ever since his initial exposure to the Necromorphs, and he couldn't be trusted to keep all of this under wraps. Were he to survive all of this, he may be another data point for their study. 

Suddenly, Daniels's expression changed, and the writing came to a halt. She looked nervous, perhaps, and looked down at Isaac's body. He wondered what it was, and then he looked down.

Well, fuck. 

The scorpions making their way up his leg joined the long centipede parked more or less around his thigh, and even through the fabric of his slacks- no, he could see it just as well. You could see it from looking there just as well as from his flushed face and heavy breathing. Something about the contact with these things- those small, physical feelings- there was an actual tent in his pants. No explaining this one. He instinctively wanted to try and cover himself but then he remembered the chains, and his hands only rattled the links behind him. The unnatural feeling coursing through him- he didn't know if it was psychosomatic or real. Daniels looked away, nervously, on instinct. Unique species or not, he was gonna kill these things. Maybe, now he would be let off the hook, one way or another.

They both heard it. Another noise, booming through the adjacent corridor, even after he'd thought they had cleared this place out. It was different from the last. Something heavier, less deliberate. Daniels turned her attention toward the door and armed the laser rifle. Isaac glanced around for some other way to break free, but found nothing. Daniels made a dash for the corner, taking aim the door, and held that position in stillness. It damn well looked like she was out to use him as bait. He couldn't see anything but if this was what he thought it was, that rifle wouldn't cut it.

He didn't need to wonder much longer. The persistent thump turned into a tremor. Echoing through the halls, it caused chaos wherever it went, and crashed into the room through layers of its infrastructure, missing the door entirely. It was still within aim of the rifle and Daniels open fired into its back. It winced at the bullets but Isaac knew that these were impervious to anything short of canonfire. The bullets attracted its attention momentarily, as if it was briefly considering which human to go after. Still, it had its sights on Isaac. This hulking, brutal Necromorph came soaring toward him. That was it, then. Isaac closed his eyes. It got like this when death was so near in hand. 

It was always the same. The lift-off to that plane from before. The place where Nicole was telling him he was safe, the place of sunlight breaking through and sweet pre-Ishimura memories and moving through his hometown at two miles an hour. To think he needed such a departure to experience anything like that again. He never even had the opportunity to pay the proper respects. These tokens kept existing. They couldn't take _that_ away from him, surely. There was nothing left to do except wait.

But as he waited, nothing happened. He opened his eyes. The terrible Necromorph was still headed for him, except in slow motion, encumbered by a heavy stasis charge. Daniels must have fired it off upon realizing that the rifle wasn't doing the trick. She fired several more charged shots with a sidearm. They planted in the Necromorph's back and arm joints, and were powerful enough to deter it, although they lacked precision and scattered around their target. Isaac saw several projectiles, bullets, fly far above his head. They missed him but hit the pillar. His heart did leaps. Could this be it? Daniels was too preoccupied with unloading the full clip into this thing's back to realize the other targets that were hit. Isaac felt his arms loosen and the chain was damaged enough to be broken. The links were still attached to his hands and could not be removed, but at least now he was free. Free to run away from the brute, lumbering toward him.

He dashed to the other side of the room and collected the discarded rifle. The brute, still under the influence by the stasis, clamored toward him and he fired at it. He didn't know how long this scuffle could last. Or how much fight Isaac really had in him. Daniels was nowhere to be found. He glanced at the broken-down section of the wall and saw the debris, moved- evidence of a person escaping through there. 

The slow animation of this Necromorph did little to stifle how intimidating it was. Isaac stared at its face. He shouldn't just stand there. In spite of the brute everything was quiet. He saw something- definitely a whisper, from the Marker. It must have followed him here, or there very well may be a Marker aboard the Valor. That aching in the back of his brain started up once again. There was no brute here any longer. Only an abyss. The black and white, the same as before, familiar edges of the caved-in walls where the torpedo room just was. The real nightmare started here. He forgot who he was and what he was doing, but recognized the person in front of him as Nicole.

No. Focusing his gaze, the real world paged back in, and so did the brutal thing inching toward him. He emptied the full clip and a half that were left on the rifle and there was no more. The last of the stasis weaponry was already expended. His pocket contained only an old switchblade. There was only one thing left to do: escape. He dashed for the far side of the room, through an opening that was too small for the Necromorph to pass through. It smelled human blood but its senses were dull. The stasis had it facing the other way, unable to see where Isaac had gone. It was not his most sophisticated escape.

He made himself fit in the narrow space between the ship walls, navigating through stray wire and old insulation material. He heard angry thrashing and a mindless, inhuman scream on the other side. He pushed forward- it took him high and low, through ventilation ducts and maintenance holding cells, until he found himself outside one of the control rooms. This room being unguarded, he passed through expecting to see Daniels.

Instead, there was the ship's helm and terminal for all of its controls. He could scarcely believe the good fortune. Stepping in, the door closed behind him, which gave him some piece of mind that that Necromorph from before may not be able to reach him here. He powered the control on and credentialed in, feeling very much back in his element. He froze. 

He was not alone. 

He heard it, coming from a chamber beneath the stairs, even if he couldn't see whom it was. If he were to find Daniels here, he didn't know what he'd do. Should have figured he would get followed. He didn't have it in him to murder a person. Not even after everything that'd happened. He was still his same old self, in most ways. But clearly the two of them could not co-exist. The decision might get made for him. He went to the back to investigate. He aimed his rifle, even though the clip was spent. It was about the image more than anything, and if it served to defend himself, so be it. The shuffling continued. He opened the door to a sub-chamber underneath the stairs. He had to find the source of the noise before it found him. Opening the door, he kept up his aim. 

Scanning around at eye level, there was nothing. No sign of life. But then he looked down.

Sure enough, it was the vermin from before. The exact same. He may actually have a chance to kill these things now. Perhaps not by stomping them all to death, but if he could recover some weaponry from the ship, he'd dispatch them quickly. Either way, it wasn't the type of threat which had him on edge. He left the creatures beneath the staircase and returned to the terminal.

First thing first was typing the distress message. It looked like the COM was still online. As he began keying it in, he heard the vermin surface from the chamber under the stairs and slowly close the distance to Isaac. Of course, they would follow him like this. He doubted they were any serious threat, only a nuisance. As he waited on the credential store to validate, he glanced over at them, several paces away. In this light, he could see them better. Some of the specimens were bigger, some smaller, some had longer antannae or more legs or pincers or a long metasoma. They resembled a wide variety of small things from Earth. Centipedes, beetles, opiliones, other arthropods- but they were none of them any one Earth species exactly.

The credential went through. He keyed,

"< Valor 532.64 316.23 1101.3 Sustained s"- 

Unable to finish, before something caught his attention. The pile of life here, in the room, was now bigger than how he remembered it before- was there no end to these things? Absentmindedly he swatted one of them away. He couldn't be bothered to try and escort all of them out. He was about to continue keying in the message, and make some attempt to ignore them.

Great. More of them came in his way, and landed, dropping from the ceiling, unceremoniously on the interface's keyboard, startling his hand away. Others meandered up the side of the console, striving toward nothing in particular. They dallied and writhed between the keys, probably getting themselves stuck. Some of them, of course, landed on Isaac's arms, which he brushed off. The ones that landed on the display itself couldn't get a grip with their little legs and slid right down. So they followed him here, and appeared to be non-hostile, but now they were interfering with him sending out the signal.

But-

A message appeared in the type. He squinted. Appended to the end, was-

"< Valor 532.64 316.23 1101.3 Sustained soT he same,"-

What?

Wide-eyed, he iterated through the possibilities in his head. Some foreign entity was interfering with the COM, inserting content of its own. That's one. Or a software malfunction. That was more likely. Another, is they just so _happened_ to land on the keys in such a way that formed two, mostly formed, comprehendable common language elements. Less likely. He tried to work out the exact odds of this in his head. How many characters were there? This was lottery-prize-level odds. But still, plausible. He carriage returned and canceled it, about to brush the vermin off of the keys and retype the item. But before he could so much as do that, something new blinked up on the display-

"< Let's go outside"

Okay. So there it was, with capitalization, even. He didn't type this. There _was_ some agent in the middle. He entered,

"< Outside, where?"

Then looked down. They swarmed over his hands in a disorganized frenzy, obscuring much of the keys. He needed to know. Some confirmation he wasn't completely losing it. Isaac closely studied the movements of the keys as the pile clamored over them. It was too hard to catch everything. Some of them hit keys, others wandered aimlessly on or around the console. He switched on an accessibility feature so that they would illuminate on contact. First a carriage-return, then 'N', 'o', and 'm', and after it was done, looked up at the display-

"< No more than the memory of Fire can warm the body, can Faith ever"

No sooner than he hit the carriage return, he saw it-

"< ever exist in want of true Love" It- no. 

Isaac immediately reeled backward from the console, as far away as he could, until he was right against the wall. He stared blankly at the bulk of insects poring over the keyboard. They slipped and scurried around the keys like any other collection of dumb earthly things. On contact, some of them fought with each other. Others spilled onto the floor below in a gross, disorganized mess, displaced by some part of the crowd. These were far from earthly things. He normally dismissed these kinds of phenomena as impossible. A collective 'mind'. Collective intelligence. Necromorph or animalia, there were no known examples anything this sophisticated. Far be it from him to doubt his own eyes. Damn it, he was an engineer, not a biologist. Everything pointed to them comprising all _one_ being. But, some of the vermin themselves were killed in the scuffle earlier. Did it require all its parts to survive? What was _it_ , really?

He rose to his feet despite his trembling body. He was far more heavily invested in trying to understand the _how_ of what it was saying to him, than the _what_. Stepping back closer to the terminal, he saw them continually loiter around the console, narrowly avoiding the keys for now. They appeared to take no notice of him. They clamored over one another like the small, mindless creatures they were. Surely not cognizant of what just happened. Surely not capable of sentience. He wanted to look into this thing's eyes. He didn't know what to look at. Which one? They varied in size, some bigger, some smaller, some centipede-like, some not- there was no discernible _leader_. His eyes traced the paths of a couple of them. There was no rhyme or reason, only aimless wandering, reacting to whatever it was they ran into. He felt, inwardly, that they were watching him. Waiting. 

He said out loud, "Do you know who I am?" Immediately, he felt incredibly silly. The vermin kept bumbling into each other, and a couple more crawled onto his hands and he brushed them off. Trying to avoid striking the keys instead of them, he typed the same into the interface. That did it. The crowd didn't make any signs of acknowledgement, and was equally as full of life, but they crawled onto the keys in greater frequency. 

"< Our make"

Rattled like this, funny how his first order of business should be introducing himself. They couldn't make sense of the spoken word, then. They clearly had eyes, which implied photoreceptors. This response was what would ultimately convince him. Without that- say they could, by some perversion of nature, type things into the computer- then they could only parrot strange phrases they'd seen elsewhere, with no relation to anything.

But he needed to know, once and for all.

"< How many fingers am I holding up?"

"< Four, you silly goose" 

Additional centipedes fell from the ceiling, onto his hands and arms, onto the console. He put down his hand holding up the four fingers. He backed away slowly, feeling the sudden onset of a cold sweat. He felt physically sick. The quivering mass flowed onto the floor and some settled on the ceiling, but all of them kept within spitting distance of Isaac and the terminal. 

That was enough of that. Isaac was done trying to shoot holes in whatever the swarm was trying to convince him was possible. It still flew in the face of anything and everything he understood about Necromorph and animal behavior. The mere idea of it was unbearable. He cleared out the type and finished sending the distress message, and then keyed in the directive for retrieving the ship's singularity core. It was still there- thank god, Daniels hadn't made off with it. It ejected out of a compartment attached to the far end of the console, and he watched the control shift, and reinitialize the ship's operating routine into backup power. This component was the one- it should be enough to power his escape vehicle and hightail it out of here. He took it, and started down the long path of making it back to the landing bay while avoiding detection.

Or, so he planned. He knew in his right mind he needed to get out of this room. He could still see the swarm from here. Those things were lurking beneath the stairs once more, the ones that didn't linger near him or the terminal. He felt his face fluster and became a bit short of breath. Even as his hand was right on the door lock. It ought to be so easy.

They didn't need to say anything to him. He flipped around, and sighed leaning back on the door, gazing at the space in the room. The headache from before had finally subsided into something else, leaving him slightly out of sorts; nothing that couldn't be fixed up with a small anti-inflammatory later. The metal texture of the handle was cool to the touch. It was as if he was watching, _waiting_ for something to change. Like it was waiting for a kettle to boil, for a bathtub to drain out, for a clock to show the next number. It was just quiet. Nothing happened. Minutes came and went.

Isaac would not bring himself to open the door. 

He pulled himself away, and walked back toward them. 

He dropped his gun unceremoniously to the floor. 

Swiftly disengaging his armor, he removed his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt and exposed himself to them and to the cool air here. 

They came upon him all at once, knocking him back with so much force, enveloping him. The common voice of those things was something he could almost hear now. Even more than that was the physical things- a blood bond. There was no denying it, any more than someone could deny their own DNA. The small lesions on his skin- was he marked on them the same way they were on him? 

When Isaac trespassed onto this ship to take the singularity core, when he brought himself close to this new Marker and the swarm, he fulfilled a part of their hivemind's link to one another and gained their memories. Something as ancient as the Marker itself, beyond anything he'd bargained for. That didn't come for free.

He had to pay using his body.

Isaac was writhing around on the floor as he was knocked backward, and felt like his body was no longer his own. He got on his hands and knees, clothes left in disarray, leaving himself utterly vulnerable for them. He would give them everything and that included his body. The centipedes were fast moving and instantly took to wrapping around his shoulders and thighs. These were the same thickness as Earth centipedes, several feet long and they forked into a Y-shape. The roach-like ones took to traveling inside his unbuttoned shirt and they stayed still. The rest of the swarm was a bit slower moving, starting at his knees, making their way up his prostrated body. Only a scarce couple of them bit him, none too seriously- small love bites he would be more than prepared for with a human lover. He wanted them everywhere. 

Instantly he was harder than he'd ever been in his life. It was as if the bugs could sense it, taste it as they crawled over the bulge of his clothed dick. Sure, they made a point of exploring each and every corner of his body, and now he did not resist them- but they took some special interest in his package. The ache was terrible, the condition was so bad, he prepared to just rub one out here and now and do the job himself. Anything. Oh god, what was happening to him? 

They wanted everything and Isaac was more than willing to give it to them. Balls to bones he wanted to get fucked by these things even with no real plan of how. He just got down here and stripped for them, and positioned his half-clothed body for instant access. He made it easy for them- hastily unbuckled his belt, undid his fly. He whipped it out and immediately felt better now that he wasn't so confined down there. His erection jutted out into the air and they seemed to latch onto it, they were interested in stroking it and playing with it. The centipedes brushed up against it and the roaches ate up his precum, clustering around the head of his cock, and explored around for more. The millipedes and snails were still making their way up there. If he could complain about anything it was far too gentle. He needed to get off yesterday. Their legs crawling over it, their little limbs playing with him- it wasn't like real sex and he doubted he could get all the way off. He had half a mind to whisk them off of his member and finish the job. The swarm was hellbent on teasing him and they knew what they were doing to him. He thrust his hips into the empty air in attempts to get more. He was fucking the touch of their prickly little legs, the slimy bodies of some of the snail-like Necromorphs, and a whole lot of nothing. 

He choked back some pathetic, desperate noises and wondered if their hivemind was getting out of this the same things that he was. He wanted so badly to kiss them- wanted to kiss _it_ \- the hivemind had no such thing. He could do nought but offer his body, and let them have their way with him. He wanted them to sexually penetrate him and completely inseminate his body. Even with their alien seed, whose properties he couldn't begin to know. In the back of his mind somewhere, there was a dissenting voice. A terrified human who wanted to more than to get these things off of him, out of him. Their little legs and antennae exploring every inch of his body, using him for whatever base thing their simple minds could come up with, something deadly no doubt. To think he was always deathly afraid of anything that crawled on the earth. The engineers in his department never had to get their hands too dirty outside. As loath as he was to admit, he was easily squeamish from even a spider that was a bit too big, a hornet when he walked outside, a roach under the table, dredging up all the courage in the world to quickly kill it. Here he was, having stripped himself and prostrated himself on the floor, allowing- no, welcoming- this swarm of vermin to crawl up on him and use his willing body. 

Even as they crawled on his face, his chest, his genitals. The way the clustered around the head of his penis- it worked to sexually stimulate him. New pre-cum beaded from his cock and he thrust his hips forward in vain to try and get more of it. More and more of that prickly, wet sensation. It teased him so much and drove him crazy because it was so removed from actually fucking something. There was nothing stroking along the sides of his dick, like how it normally was. Only small licks at his cockhead, little bodies sending vibrations through it, small sections of it being stroked at one time, and a dull pain. He gripped the floor with his hands and he felt more of their bodies rain down from above. The earwigs navigated down his back, took an inefficient route wandering around his body getting to the front of his chest. The others already on his chest took an interest in his nipples, lightly stinging them and flicking them they never stopped. The small, sharp pain only deepened his arousal and he wanted it to keep going. 

Until now, he always closed his eyes during sex. Something about the vulnerability of the whole experience, it was overwhelming and he couldn't watch it as it was happening. This was different, though. He wanted to see it as it was happening. As disgusting as he found them, he wanted to watch what they were doing to his body. It was disgraceful, yet it aroused him to no end. He watched his own dick become helplessly overwhelmed by these vermin, and get teased and sucked by their little antennae, limbs, tentacles. They loved his cock and from the looks of it it truly loved them back. He watched it twitch with new life as more of the swarm joined in, piling on top and competing with each other for access to it. A couple of them lost interest in his nipples and they scaled up his collar, climbing over his face like it was anything else. He hoped they knew what this was doing to him. His face was flushed red, panting, barely able to stay on his hands and knees. Still, that voice in the back of his head, quieter and quieter, wanted him to stop this. It wanted him to close his legs, pry these things off of his body, get his penis out of them. Something about that scared voice, that side of him, the one that was afraid of such creatures, aroused him even more. 

The force of arousal was so powerful he became weak in the knees. After holding this position for so long his arms could no longer support him. Carefully he flipped himself onto his back, and they scurried quickly to avoid having their bodies crushed. He may have offed a couple of them but didn't really care at this point. Now, he had a fuller view of the action, and kept his knees slightly up and legs a bit apart to give them unfettered access to his cock, testes and everything. The sight was really obscene. As more pre-ejaculate came out of his member, they lapped up the semen and fought with each other for that privilege. He saw them climb on top of each other and kill one another to eat his cum. Upon eating his cum some of them would mount the others and appear to engage in sexual copulation. His penis kept twitching but he felt himself going crazy from the lack of fuller stimulation. He couldn't help but thrust his hips upward, into the air, though it got him nothing. Any more of this and he was going to get blue balls. He had never been this hard, and this unfulfilled, in his life. 

There was something coming down from the ceiling, that he ignored before- a newcomer to the infestation on his cock. This one looked distinct from all the other flying ones. It had delicate, butterfly-like wings, a long metasoma. It explored the unoccupied parts of his dick, of which there wasn't much left. It seemed to be looking for something. Finally, it settled on a small patch on the side of the head. It walked in a small circle along the smooth, pink, sensitive flesh. He thrust upward again, trying to get more of the stimulation. Then he just watched, his hands passively bracing the floor. He knew what was about to happen. It raised its metasoma, tapering down to a tiny stinger. Yes- the sharp sensation came down on him, ever so briefly, as it just tapped the head of his cock a few times. It didn't go deep, but he knew it was injecting something into him. That venom he was thinking about before. He felt it. The soft sting on his penis, even as he saw it happening and did nothing to stop it. 

He pulled the thing off his dick as he'd had enough, and the sharp sting turned into a dull throb. It did not bleed but there was certainly a sting- a chemical, coursing through. He trusted that this thing was not out to maim or kill, although holy cow, it smarted, he nearly regretted not pulling it off earlier. He stared down at his dick to see if there were any obvious abrasions and saw none. Only the swarm, little deterred by his flinching, exploring all over his dick, trying to elicit forth more of that human cum they liked eating so much. The dull throb, one that usually accompanied an erection lasting this long, coursed more loudly now all through his lower body. That sting, though- something was happening. He screwed his eyes shut. His mind went from all kinds of sexual fantasies, to reasoning about everything that was happening to his body, the power of these insects, and how strong his desire was now. Even with his eyes shut, he felt more of the pre-cum shoot out of his dick and by sensation alone he knew they were lapping it up still. 

He wondered about why exactly they wanted human DNA that much, and whether they could actually use it for reproduction. His parts were more than willing to give them a baby and a half if that's what they wanted. Maybe from their point of view, it would actually be less efficient to Isaac to get all the way off, and better to tease him like this forever, so that they were free to enjoy his pre-cum for longer- a normal orgasm would put him out of commission for a while. It was so fucking intense right now. He let out some noise, indistinguishable whether pain or pleasure, and braced himself more fully along the floor, and more of the long centipedes helped themselves to aimlessly climbing over his body. That throbbing in his dick was becoming more and more distracting. It was all he could think about. He opened his eyes, and immediately looked down and saw- 

Oh, no. The swelling. Even erect, it never looked quite like this- that sting, injecting its venom, had done something. Now, it was even more red and swollen than before. Though it smarted it did little to stifle his arousal. In fact, he loved and welcomed that feeling- it deepened the stimulation to his penis and all pain seemed to disappear under the dull haze of arousal. Looking down, he could only see some hyper-sexualized version of himself, a version of his body fit for consumption by these _things_. His cock was extra sensitive to the touch, and the soft stinging accelerated his arousal. Even the smallest of sensations felt so much stronger. The pricking of their little legs, the stroking of their limbs along his body- the vibrations resonated painfully through his swollen cock and it now felt like sexual intercourse, it felt like he was penetrating someone. His whole body was at their mercy.

He thrashed his head to the side and felt himself drooling into the floor. His flushed, swollen dick seemed to twitch under those small creatures, jutting out in front of him, insisting on them paying attention to it. They were still stinging, flicking at his nipples, licking his cock, and crawling over the rest of his exposed body. He fantasized about all the different ways they could fuck him. His mind, his body felt exposed and raw, having never wanted anyone so badly. He didn't want to get all the way off because then it would end. Surely, he couldn't get all the way off on this little stimulation. No... He felt himself pushed past the edge. He gripped the ground to his sides, and opened his legs a bit more. 

His stinging, swollen dick ejaculated all over them. Thick spurts of human seed, the thing they so desperately wanted, landed back on his dick and on his stomach. They came upon it all at once, each desperate to be the first to swallow it down. 

As the haze of arousal cleared, so did the force of desire masking the pain. His penis was still slightly swollen and it was not due to natural causes. He winced as he felt yet another few of the vermin climb on top of it. It hurt slightly but he couldn't be bothered to stop them. He was exhausted, spent, contemplating where to go from here. Then he felt something wet. It was strange, like a sticky secretion. The white liquid covered his dick all over, and even went inside his urethra. It felt hot and cold at the same time. He watched it, bracing himself for the worst. It didn't enhance the pain. In fact, it was the opposite- he felt that stinging, that burning feeling quiet down until nothing was left- his cock shrank, down to a normal, half-flaccid size. It apparently healed whatever damage the sting did. He closed his eyes and rested on the floor, spent. A few more of the winged insects perched on his arms and fingers like curious, other-worldly butterflies. Isaac admired them in a different light from before.

The satellite vessel could wait. This room was locked up. Daniels was not his problem now. He only wanted to remain here for a while longer. His heart felt raw, changed and surrendered over. The things climbing over his body, between his fingers- they weren't so different from himself. He knew things now that he didn't before- which parts were responsible for which function, and how to access some of their memories. To kill a few organisms in the swarm was a loss of knowledge and little more. And speaking of which, he saw the same creatures, the one who copulated after intaking his seed. They quivered in a pile. He had little else to do than to watch them. Their small bodies trembled, and ejected out- oh. Eggs. There were quite a few of them, clustered around in one sticky mass. A different specimen spun a protective web around separate egg sacs and every few of them had a Necromorph insect parked on it defensively. Isaac wondered if there was any way these things were his spawn. Genetically, it had to be impossible. But more importantly than that, he wondered if some of his memories were somehow imparted onto these things. And what the hive saw in him- if not a vested interest in his survival, then a useful asset for obtaining knowledge about their very own Marker.

Then the tremor started. The same one as before- and, he thought he was safe here. The loud, brutal footsteps closed in on the hallways outside of the control room. Isaac sprang to his feet and fixed his clothes. This room had armaments- he inserted a new clip into his rifle and armed it. It may be possible for this thing to break through.

And it was. The brutal Necromorph could sense him, smell him- it crashed clean through the wall like a battering ram and made straight for Isaac. He unloaded several shots into its wounded collar and use it to buy some time, move himself out of its line of sight. It was a good opportunity to charge the stasis firing mode. The brutal Necromorph turned around and locked its sights on Isaac once again. At the same time, he opened fire. The stasis was a clean shot. The Necromorph slowed to a near stop, the death still in its eyes. The shot may not be potent enough. The beast animated once again and made for Isaac's general direction, but it was still encumbered and slow. It missed Isaac and instead came very near the swarm. 

Isaac's heart sank. This brutal Necromorph was more than capable of killing something the size of that swarm and then some. Easily: Necromorph species lack regard for their own kind. He needed to stop it from happening. As those few delicate bodies in the swarm were crushed, the world phased into something else. There was a searing pain in his temples. It was memory loss. It was a heartbreaking process of remembering _other_ things more clearly. No, he didn't see the brute anymore. He saw _her_. He nearly dropped the gun. It was that same voice as before, the one telling him how dangerous it was in this world. It was dark and cold. It was so lonely on the other side. How he should join her, because he could become a whole person, not fettered by the damage from before. No bells, no storms. He would forget all of this, just as he'd been trying to forget about the events on the Ishimura. He stayed the rifle, trembling, in his fingers.

The dust and debris flew away, slicing the room apart lengthwise piece by piece, and her face illuminated everything. She didn't only have it in for him. Her attention turned toward the swarm. Vulnerable, only half-hidden under the stairs, they toyed with her leg and she started to wrench them off. The sheer difference in size and power was clear. She dispatched a couple more, insect gore and small bodies crushed against the wall, trampled by a colossal force propelled forward in slow motion. Here and now, he was ready to let himself be killed by her. But- them, too? He opened fire at the figure, slicing through alien flesh and stasis-induced muscles. Even as it fell down lifeless. The disjoint body parts of the brutal Necromorph collapsed down, barely recognizable- even as his clip was exhausted. A simple, armed boot was enough to trample it down again and again.

Until he was certain. It hurt to make this separation. This final farewell. That face from before, something which haunted him even now- he said his farewells, and there was no path except straight forward. He felt it in his heart, in his mind, in the swarm. Upon recovery of his link to the pile, he saw things- the very first Marker inscription, the first specimen planted here by Earthgov, the downfall of the ship, and Daniels escaping. With the singularity core in hand, and a clear course to the landing bay- this meant freedom. Leave the Valor.

Punishment. Prison. He couldn't ask them why. He couldn't fathom anymore what it meant to be let loose. To leave this place, without them? Maybe, now, he was technically equipped to do just that. Even if it felt hard to believe. This mattered, as he entertained ideas about the future. He could find himself back on Aegis VII, or more likely on the Lunar Colony. Sure. When all this was done and through, he could pick up contract work like before, or his old shift at the CEC. He could re-establish all his old ties, or start off new. There were all kinds of possibilities now- the escape vessel could route out of here. With enough work he could do anything. One thing rang true, no matter what- he might leave, establish a new life of semi-normalcy somewhere- but he couldn't even imagine what would become of him upon escaping this place, the person he would eventually become, without _them_. 

He had a past without them, but no future. He didn't know how to describe this feeling except for both _powerful_ at the same time as _comfortable_. If he were to leave, they would follow. He would keep them close, even if there were no other Necromorphs, even to the end. Because they offered him the cup of their fellowship, his most cherished asset now. With it came that special part of their collective memory, their hivemind, they imparted onto him. He didn't spurn their offer. He cherished it and drank it down, fulfilling the bond that he would defend to the death, leaving him no more hungry for his old trappings- hell, he would fully commit himself, giving them everything and demanding nothing in return if that got him any closer. This made him a better person. The feeling was richer, more fulfilling and more genuine than anything else. Every drop went down. All the way right to the dredges. Rather than tie him down, it could even take him out of this terrible place.


End file.
